Thursday, November 1, 2012

Sasquatch: The Legend of Bigfoot (1977)

By using documentary-style elements such as a
narration track filled with facts and figures, plus a linear storyline tracking
the drudgery of a scientific exploration (think Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom), executive producer/story author
Ronald D. Olson creates an immersive but unpersuasive illusion that Sasquatch: The Legend of Bigfoot is a
re-creation of something that actually happened. Presumably, this fakery was
used to obfuscate the paucity of, for lack of a better word, “money
shots”—Sasquatch only has about 10 minutes of screen time in the entire
picture, most of it in flashbacks that Olson uses to illustrate old stories the
movie’s characters share with each other while sitting around campfires. The bulk
of this picture comprises dull footage of explorers venturing into the wilds of
British Columbia to search for Bigfoot. Supervised by scientist Chuck Evans
(George Lauris), the group of explorers includes such clichéd types as a gruff
mountain man, a skeptical big-city reporter, and a stoic Native American. After
meandering through pointless interludes—frolicking with raccoons, tussling with
mountain lions—the group reaches a valley believed to be Sasquatch’s lair.
Then, in the final scenes, the explorers set up surveillance equipment around
the valley and endure a nighttime assault by an unknown number of creatures.
Director Ed Ragozzino relies on quick cutting and silhouettes to create a
low-grade sense of danger, and composer Al Capps provides a Jaws-style motif that rumbles on the
soundtrack whenever Bigfoot appears. (The monster is primarily depicted through
point-of-view shots, another rip-off from Jaws.)
Getting to the climax requires a great deal of stamina on the viewer’s part,
and the payoff isn’t nearly worth the trouble—because by the time the picture
concludes with a silly theme song (“There in God’s country, he just wants to be left
alone”), mediocrity has given way to monotony.

For what it's worth, I actually wrote a Bigfoot movie that I humbly believe has the potential for greatness or, at the very least, things-that-go-bump-in-the-night awesomeness. It's in development, which means it will emerge sometime between soon and never. So I've done my bit!